1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to a method and system for presenting default content on a web page in an area designated for displaying externally provided content. More particularly, the invention relates to a method and system for presenting default content on a web page in an area designated for displaying externally provided content when such externally provided content is otherwise not displayable.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The Internet provides both an attractive opportunity and a challenge to advertisers and merchandisers. The very large number of users of the Internet today provide a large audience for relatively low cost product and service offerings. However, the relative anonymity of a users presence and the exceedingly large number of users on the internet means that targeting advertising to individuals most likely interested in the product or service being offered is very difficult. To address this challenge, methods and systems have been developed which identify from a user's activities, products and services related to those activities in which the user may specifically be interested. Such methods and systems include those that provide advertising based on user profiles and those that provide advertising in response to a search engine query. As an example of the later case, a user may visit a web search engine's webpage to enter a search query. The search results returned by the search engine may occupy the main area on the displayed webpage. Another area, often located to the side of the main frame, displays advertising information such as text, links, and images for products which might be related to the search results.
Those cases in which an area of the webpage is populated by content from a second server (e.g., a third party server) pose a special problem. If, for some reason, the content from the second server is not displayable, for example if the connection to the second server is impaired due to a slow or unavailable connection, the webpage may fail to load, or at best, rendering of the webpage will be incomplete. This results in lost merchandising opportunity, and presents a partially rendered and unattractive webpage to the purchaser, possibly affecting future business.
Accordingly, there is a need for a method and system that contemplates those cases in which content intended to be rendered on a webpage is not displayable. More specifically, there is a need for a method and system which allows a webpage provided by a first server to appear fully rendered when content required to complete a section of a webpage comes from a second server that is slow in responding, unavailable, responds in an incompatible format or for some other reason cannot be displayed.